Many world travelers can probably relate to the following scenario: You get to the airport two hours early (as is generally suggested) for your international flight, but end up spending most of that time sitting at the gate, twiddling your thumbs while waiting for the airplane to arrive (still beats being in line at the security check all that time, but still).

Naturally, your mobile phone gets a workout during this wait, but you can only update Facebook so many times before it loses its luster, and your friends already saw that you checked into gate C-16 and are “Sooooo excited to visit NYC!” 

Thanks to KLM and a group of creative developers and designers, you can now channel that excitement into a simple, fun AR trivia game that’s targeted to your travel destination.

The Ready For Boarding layer was created for KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), and based out of Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport. It keeps live data of Schiphol’s flight schedule, so you can choose the exact flight you’re taking and answer trivia questions about your destination that appear as 3D objects in AR.

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Augmented reality is gaining popularity in the corporate promotion and advertising space, and Layar is a common solution for many companies. One such example which just launched this week is that of Enel, Italy’s largest energy provider, and the second largest in all of Europe.

The company’s vision for 2011 is to inspire “a future built on sustainable well-being” - a dream they say has persisted throughout the years. A TV ad shows a boy in the past tossing a paper airplane into the air and through time as it eventually lands at the feet of a boy in present day.

To help with the campaign, Enel is enhancing their billboard advertisements in airports across Europe with an augmented reality experience built on Layar. The billboards feature a marker which encourages viewers to download Layar and launch the Enel layer for additional information.

You can see the same paper airplane from the ads floating around you, and can click it to watch the video on your phone. Other 3D models include videos and information about electric vehicles and the smart grid.

You can view some of the videos at Enel’s website, and the billboard ads can be found in airports in London, Pairs, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Brussels, Bucharest and Moscow.

On your mobile device? Click here to launch the Enel layer now!